Revolution and reliability collide in Libya

Rick Loomis/MCT News ServiceProtests in Libya have raised the prospect that some websites using its country code, like bit.ly, could be in danger.

Now you can add far-off revolutions to the reasons why your information isn’t safe online.

With the upheaval in Libya comes a potential threat to internet addresses ending in .ly, such as bit.ly, the popular URL shortener—a service for trimming long web addresses into brief, bite-sized ones (like bit.ly/dQIV0S, for an archive of this column). Though you probably didn’t realize it, that .ly stands for Libya. It is the country code part of the web address, and it was chosen by bit.ly and other companies, presumably, because adding .ly (as opposed to .at, for Austria, or .tm, for Turkmenistan) makes certain words sound fun and sort of cute.

Cute, that is, until you realize that dictator running the place won’t be there forever, and you have no idea what will follow him.

The technical ins and outs of whether Libya’s problems really imperil bit.ly and other .ly companies are currently being debated. Articles at ReadWriteWeb (see rww.to/fh0al3) and Time (see ti.me/hcigf7) delve into the matter. From what they say, it’s quite likely bit.ly—and any URLs you have shortened, using the service—won’t go poof anytime soon.

Companies typically choose to use a country code, rather than a more traditional domain name suffix, because many popular .com names have been taken and because appending a country code can help a company with branding (as in the case of bit.ly). The country codes have been assigned by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and while they’re often used in traditional ways—as in the BBC site at www.bbc.co.uk—that’s not always the case. Some nations, such as Tuvalu (with the .tv country code), have tried to make money off of their country codes.

But the situation with bit.ly does make you think twice about all of the information you do have online, and whether it’s really going to be there for you next week, next year, or forever. We’re connected to the internet with our phones, our TVs, our video game consoles, and our computers, and we’re basically sending our data—our photos and our status updates, our location check-ins and our bank transactions—out there throughout the day. I think it’s fair to say most people don’t give a whole lot of thought to what companies we’re using for all of this.

What dangers are lurking? In most instances, if you choose a reputable company (with big-name customers, for instance, and solid financial backing, if it’s a startup) you’ll often be safe. But you never know. Here are five ways things can go wrong:

Startup woes
Facebook is the exception. Most startups don’t last. Before you start using one — and investing your time by sending it your videos or status updates (or whatever else) — be sure you’re confident it’s not going to disappear a few months from now.

Lost interest
Google, Yahoo, and other internet companies have lots of products these days, for everything from maps to music. Sometimes they lose interest in the services they’ve created, then shut them down — even if you’ve come to rely on them.

Plan prices go up
Just a few weeks ago, I recommended Mozy, a service for online backups. Then an e-mail arrived: The company is eliminating its plan for unlimited online backups. What’s my new solution? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

There’s no way out

It’s not always easy, or even possible, to extricate yourself — well, your data — from a service you’ve used for years and years, whether it’s because of all the time you’ve spent tagging your photos, uploading (and sharing) videos, or organizing your files. Google’s Data Liberation Front website (at www.dataliberation.org) does an admirable job with supplying tools for taking your data from Google, but other companies often provide little, if any, guidance.

Political turmoil
Geopolitics haven’t been at the forefront of dangers to typical internet users, but the Libya situation does raise questions about the use of so many different country codes in website names. The next time you see one of those two-letter suffixes, you may want to check out what country it represents.

Though it’s not possible to guard against every eventuality, it does make sense to do your due diligence when choosing what web-based services you use, especially for the information you value most, such as documents, financial data and photos. Not long ago, I was thinking about signing up for an online bookkeeping service, but I decided to skip it. Why? Though the service looked slick and the price was right, I was worried it didn’t have enough financial backing. You want to look into the company’s founders, who’s funding it, and, if it’s a business service, whether it’s got recognizable names among its customers. If you’re still not sure, send the company an e-mail query and see if you get a response.

Whatever services you choose, be sure to back up your data — always an essential component of keeping your information safe (and under your control).